Octave: Setsuko gains some praise for a song she composed during a rough patch of her relationship with Yukino.

Princess Tutu: The author Drosselmeyer is fanatically obsessed with pain and tragedy. He flat-out states that he considers stories with happy endings to be "boring."

Translucent: The philosophy of Shizuka's idol, the visiting stage actress. She sees Shizuka practicing outside by herself, and figures out that the drama advisor must have asked her to hide because of her translucent syndrome acting up. The end of the chapter is the actress talking during an interview where she says she feels angst is important for a developing actress.

Comic Book

Arne Anka: Arne seems to belive this, with most of his work being either incredibly confusing, or dark and depressing.

Bamse: Usually, Brum's artwork is pretty cheery, but the trope was invoked in the story where he went through a "dark" period due to a rejection from a girl he liked and was promptly "discovered" as an artist.

In the final issue of Flex Mentallo, the Hoaxer invokes this trope while discussing the nature of comics. He mentions how it's usually the darkest, most depressing books that win the most acclaim, but goes on to argue that the desire to have everything be as bleak and Darker and Edgier as possible is just as juvenile as an insistence on constant happy endings.

X-Men: An anthology story had Colossus running into someone who believed this at an art exhibition, criticising Piotr's initial artwork for not being nihilistically depressing. For whatever reason, Piotr decides this guy has a point, and paints another piece while thinking about his dead little sister. The gloomy art critic approves of this second piece.

Comic Strips

Funky Winkerbean: The parents who don't like the drama class performing the play Wit because "School plays are for fun and relaxation, not art."

Film

In The Life of Émile Zola, Zola insists on writing about all the injustices and social ills of French society. When the publisher that Zola works for suggests that Zola write about safer topics Zola reacts with contempt, and the publisher fires him.

Spes Phthisica: Helen's art only becomes popular when the dead landscapes of her dreams start entering into it

Life of Pi plays with this trope. The main story is a fantastical one about Pi surviving 227 days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. The officials do not believe this account, so Pi tells an alternate, but similar story in which the animal characters are replaced with humans who cannibalize each other, with the audience implicitly being posed the question of which one is true. Those who believe in this trope may be more inclined towards the human story.

Mocked in IT, which, like many Stephen King stories, features a writer as a major character. Bill Denborough, one of the novel's leads, attends a writing program in college in the late 1960's/early 1970's, and finds himself butting heads against the other students in the class and even the teacher, who insists on analyzing every detail of every story in an anti-war, psychosexual model (the same teacher praises another student's play, which lasts for hours and consists of a cast of actors repeating individual words—one word each—that eventually become a sentence against capitalism). When Bill finally gets tired of the constant insistence on finding deeper meanings in everything they write, he asks, "Can't you guys just let a story be a story?" Notably, he's the only one in his class who becomes a major success.

Live-Action TV

The Crazy Ones: Invoked by Simon in "Sydney, Australia" while he is trying to get Danny Chase, Sydney's stalker-ish former co-workernote who's subsequently slapped with a restraining order preventing him from getting withing 50 yards of Sydney until 2015 (played by Josh Groban), to sell him the rights to the saccharine love song he'd written. Simon succeeds by pointing out that the material written after Sydney broke the co-worker's heart is much better than the song he's trying to buy.

Doctor Who: In "Vincent and The Doctor", Dr Black — Bill Nighy's character — who is an art expert, explains in Van Gogh's presence how the latter managed to "transform the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty" and "use [his] passion and pain to portray the joy and ecstasy and magnificence of our world". And this is why he is the greatest artist who ever lived.

Andy: 'Cause your music is sad, and depressing, and weird, and art...is supposed to happy, and fun, and everyone knows that.

Six Feet Under: Played straight with everyone but Claire. Claire attains some moderate artistic success with a more upbeat portfolio, but keeps trying to pitch her own work, which is all gloomy shots of gravestones. No one is interested.

Brian from Spaced can only paint when he's unhappy. When he starts dating Twist and becomes very happy, he can't paint anymore, until someone tells him that his uncle died.

Lampshaded in the penultimate episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look, where the guys discuss giving the show a Darker and EdgierKill 'em All finale for the sake of winning acclaim and awards. They specifically cite the similar bleak ending to the final series of Blackadder. To that end, they seek out and kill the cheeriest cast member they can find for the sake of "Narrative Purposes".

Robert Webb: If this series is to mean anything, someone's got to die!

Humorously parodied in twosketches from Saturday Night Live. Six high school students put on a bizarre, supposedly symbolic show about contemporary life, including the all-white cast pretending to be shot and declaring "AND WE WERE ALL BLACK" and annoying audience interaction. Their parents, and even the drama teacher (who's seen chain-smoking cigarettes), are all confused and occasionally offended by the "artistic" piece.

I think rock and roll is really funny when it's serious.Don't hate us 'cause we're happy,don't hate us 'cause we're beautiful!Don't hate us if we make you smile,or if we go the extra mileto make someone feel better on a really shitty day.If you're hearin' what I'm sayin', then I want you to say:I'M GAY!

Most of the band's work in general makes a point to avert this — even their sad/angry songs tend to have a silver lining to them, or at least a bit of comedy to take the edge off.

Video Games

MacGuffin's Curse: Played for laughs. The Mayor's office is full of abstract paintings, and Lucas is generally unimpressed.

Lucas: "This one's called 'PAIN BEAUTIFUL PAIN' but it's just a bunch of squares. The corners could be sharp, I guess?"

In Alice: Madness Returns, in the oriental level, the Cheshire Cat has this to say about one of the paintings.

Last Res0rt: Kurt "Geisha" Striaeta figured out that not only was it easier to just kidnap, rape, and petrify his victims in order to make his sculptures, it also got him better reviews from the critics too.

Penny and Aggie: In-universe, Aggie's rigid adherence to this attitude helps her to produce florid poetry and abysmal videos, and blinds her to the fact that she's quite good at drawing.

The Cinema Snob parodies this as part of the character, such as insisting that if you have a movie with a plot similar to Xanadu it should take itself a lot more seriously. Though he also parodies the inconsistent application of this mindset when it comes to certain genres, such as Slasher Movies.

Parodied in Awesome Fantasy VII where Cloud and Vincent act hilariously emo, ending with an old man telling his grandson "And that's why it's the best game ever!"

Fanboy dressed as Batman: I always felt Batman was best suited in the role of gritty urban crime detective? But now you guys have him up against Santas? And Easter Bunnies? I'm sorry, but that's not my Batman! The Creators: [whispering among themselves, eventually handing a note to Bat-Mite] Here, read this. Bat-Mite: Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but it's certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots as the tortured avenger crying out for Mommy and Daddy. [makes the paper disappear] And besides, those Easter Bunnies looked really scary, right?! Bruce Timm (dressed as Mark Hamill's Joker): Meh.

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